1. Technical Field
The present invention is generally directed to a method and apparatus for visualizing results of root cause analysis on transaction performance data. More specifically, the present invention provides a plurality of graph manipulation mechanisms for providing alternative views of a transactional system architecture in order to emphasize and identify root causes of detected problems.
2. Description of Related Art
IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Transaction Performance™ (hereafter ITMTP) is a centrally managed suite of software components that monitor the availability and performance of Web-based services and operating system applications. ITMTP captures detailed transaction and application performance data for all electronic business transactions. With ITMTP, every step of a customer transaction as it passes through an array of hosts, systems, application, Web and proxy servers, Web application servers, middleware, database management software, and legacy back-office software, may be monitored and performance characteristic data compiled and stored in a data repository for historical analysis and long-term planning. One way in which this data may be compiled in order to test the performance of a system is to simulate customer transactions and collect “what-if” performance data to help assess the health of electronic business components and configurations. ITMTP provides prompt and automated notification of performance problems when they are detected.
With ITMTP, an electronic business owner may effectively measure how users experience the electronic business under different conditions and at different times. Most importantly, the electronic business owner may isolate the source of performance and availability problems as they occur so that these problems can be corrected before they produce expensive outages and lost revenue.
ITMTP permits, for a particular transaction, a user to generate a graph (topology) of the transaction. The graph is a tree that visually describes a transaction through the enterprise software being monitored. While this graph provides an indication of the manner by which a transaction is processed by the various elements of the electronic business, the graph does not provide a mechanism for isolating and detecting the root causes of problems. That is, while ITMTP permits users to be alerted when there are problems, and a graph of the transaction may be provided, there is no mechanism in ITMTP for isolating the root cause of the detected problem within the graph of the transaction. Thus, it would be beneficial to have a mechanism for performing graph manipulations for easily and quickly identifying and emphasizing root causes of problems in transaction processing of an electronic business system.